Next to Normal
by DibsOnOdair
Summary: Set in an AU world where the rebellion failed, the Mockingjay is dead, and Finnick and Annie have been pardoned only for their mental illnesses. This is their future, dim as it seems.


Set in an AU world where the rebellion failed, the Mockingjay is dead, and Finnick and Annie are married, pardoned only for their mental illnesses. This is their future.

Any recognizable lyrics/characters belong to their respective writers, unfortunately for my bank account.

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><p>It's not easy. Some days she can't even get out of bed. Some days the pain overwhelms her completely. Some days there's no cure, no medicine or therapy or loving words that can draw her from reliving the nightmare that was the Hunger Games. He feels responsible, she's sure of that, but she's tried to convince him that he's not. It's not his fault. It never was.<p>

They keep up a façade for the district, for the Capitol. They know that admitting that Annie has a problem would mean that she'd get taken away from them, and as much as they fight with her, they'll fight for her even harder.

_They're the perfect loving family, so adoring__  
><em>_And I love them every day of every week__  
><em>_So my son's a little shit, my husband's boring__  
><em>_And my daughter, though a genius, is a freak__  
><em>_Still I help them love each other__  
><em>_Father mother sister brother__  
><em>_Cheek to cheek__  
><em>

They were hard. It wasn't easy. Having them was a nightmare. Constantly plagued by vision of their deaths in the games? Not the way mothers want to spend their days carrying their children, curled in bed, screaming to fight off the delusions. Annie knows it's not easy for Natalie and Gabe either, not that it matters. Children don't choose their parents. They wouldn't have chosen her and Finnick if they could.

_So it's times like these I wonder how I take it,__  
><em>_And if other families live the way we do.__  
><em>_If they love each other or if they just fake it,__  
><em>_And if other daughters feel like I feel too.__  
><em>_Cause some days I think I'm dying,__  
><em>_But I'm really only trying to get through_

It's not like Natalie doesn't know. She knows everything about her mother, about the visons and the visitors that steal her mothers reality from her. Annie tries, she knows, but sometimes it's not enough. It's not enough to never have someone. But she does have someone. No. Her throat closes and her fingers trail over the piano keys again. She doesn't have anyone. She can't have him. What if the disease is hereditary? What if she ends up just like her mother? Shut out and distant from the world? She doesn't want that for him. He deserves more than that.

_When it's up to you to hold your house together__  
><em>_A house you built with patience and with care__  
><em>_But you're grappling with that gray and rainy weather__  
><em>_And you're living on a latte and a prayer_

Finnick tries too. He holds his family together. He holds his daughter and his wife together. The winnings of two are enough to pay for everything they would ever need, but he works regardless, because the ocean calms them. He hires the best doctors, buys the highest grade medicine. All he wants is his Annie back, but she's spiraling towards unhealable. Every day is a fight for sanity, a fight for family, a fight for love.

_Can you keep the cup from tipping__  
><em>_Can you keep your grip from slipping in despair,__  
><em>_For just another day_

For Gabe, well. It's his fault.

_I'm only just awake__  
><em>_Every day is just another and another and another__  
><em>_I will hold it all together__  
><em>_We're the perfect loving family__  
><em>_If they say we're not then fuck 'em__  
><em>_The perfect loving family__  
><em>_I will keep the plates all spinning__  
><em>_And the world just keeps on spinning_

Sometimes Annie's okay. She has her good days, when she's up and smiling and active and she doesn't become crippled, riddled with nightmares of her past. Sometimes there's even consecutive days like this, and everytime they wonder if possibly, somehow, she might be getting better, healing. But the next day will be worse, like all the nightmares have been building up and they suddenly crash down on her like a wave, pulling her under into the deep unknown, into a world where only she is welcome. She'll scream and cry and threaten everyone, she won't recognize Natalie, and she'll rant about Gabe and the Games and she'll lash out dangerously. Sometimes she'll just stop and catch her breath and stare around her, as if she's still living in the past, as if she doesn't recognize reality, doesn't know where she is. It's hard, of course. Healing is never easy.

_I think the house is spinning._

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><p>I love writing things completely on a whim, and I think N2N would be Annie and Finnicks future, had Finnick survived. God I hate writing that. Odair's alive in my mind. XD<p>

Reviews, comments, suggestions? I'm taking prompts too, any person/pairing/couple, and any circumstance. I'm in a writing mood. :)


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